Cole returns, Conner joins South Tahoe City Council
By Susan Wood
In line with the early absentee counts, South Lake Tahoe voters tapped community jack-of-all-trades JoAnn Conner and incumbent Hal Cole to lead the town over the next four years. With all precincts reporting by 12:40am, Cole received 26 percent of the vote with 1980 ballots cast. Conner seized the second seat with 1928 votes at 25.3 percent.
The other three candidates: marketer Austin Sass, incumbent Bruce Grego and businessman Clinton Schue followed behind with 20.2 percent, 18.7 percent and 8.9 percent of the vote, respectively.
A high vote-by-mail turnout characterized the evening for El Dorado County. Results are unofficial and as always are expected to be finalized in the next few weeks.
For South Lake Tahoe, 52.9 percent of the city’s 9,248 registered voters cast their ballots for their favorites of the five candidates.
Hal Cole
JoAnn Conner
The race showed a little bit of everything — from the standard debate circuit to a last-minute, anti-candidate campaign with signs reading “No Sass,” a measure of no confidence to Sass’s support of the Loop Road project, one of several proposals the candidates will need to wrestle with in the near future. With new ideas coming from a creative, resourceful city manager in a post redevelopment agency era, the entire council will have its hands full in terms of responsibility. Projects and plans remain pending from Stateline to the Y in a city with much of its focus on tourism.
Cole, who runs a construction company, would be going on his fifth term with a city struggling to still define itself in the last decade. Even as a newcomer, Conner has a long history with the city working in fields ranging from social work to education.
Cole and Conner share several things in common, with one being a desire to put recreation as a focus of the city.
“I think this recreation master plan doesn’t sound like much to some people, but it’s a big deal. We’ve been skirting around this issue for a long time,” Cole said.
He wants the city to re-embrace the phrase being the all-year playground.
Conner knows developing recreation assets and then promoting them is critical to developing a better economy.
Another big issue with her is to immediately work on talking to businesses that would be good to relocate here that would bring jobs for people who already live in the area.
Cole served three four-year terms, took two years off and is now starting the second term of this stint. He tells Lake Tahoe News this will be his last run. After all, he turns 64 next month. But there is more work to do, he says.
“I’ve had a great career. I’m really excited with [City Manager] Nancy [Kerry]. She has more energy than I’ve seen in anybody,” Cole said.
He said he has great hopes with Kerry and Conner.
Conner is ready to get to work, but is realistic in her approach.
“I think the first thing I need to do is learn more, study the budget, meet with people who already offered to share their insights so I can learn more,” Conner told Lake Tahoe News early Wednesday morning.
The councilmembers-elect will join Angela Swanson, Tom Davis and Claire Fortier. The latter may soon be vacating her seat due to family obligations, leaving another possible seat up for grabs. It would likely be filled by appointment.
Thanks Sue for getting out the prelims….especially since I get ALL my news online!
Too bad Fortier didn’t resign earlier. We’d of had Sass in there as well.
No Sass ! If he would have won we would have to change the name of our council to State Line, NV City Council. Now let’s put this loop road stuff to rest once and for all and start building a better entire town. When this town was busy, it was affordable for all. Let’s give our guests a reason to visit our entire town, not just Stateline. Let’s give them a reason to return year after year.
In the event that these projections hold as is, I feel quite strongly that if Claire Fortier does leave town, Austin Sass would be the only logical choice to fill her vacant seat on the South Lake Tahoe City Council!
Wasn’t Bruce the only councilperson to energetically oppose TRPA? Doesn’t TRPA deserve at least some credit for our present lousy economic condition?
Given Hal Cole’s pretty good grasp of tennis, wonder what a Hal Cole tennis event will look like.
We need to be one…Stateline to Meyers! We need to stop the small thinking that improvements to the Stateline area are a conspiracy or bad thing. WE NEED TO HAVE VISION! We need to start somewhere, so be it Stateline. The Y area, Lakeview commons, and Ski Run have been seeing great improvements. A lot of us in our City have jobs because of corporate investments, they have huge investments, have put themselves at risk, and believe in the economic potential of South Lake Tahoe. I am no way connected to corporate America. But just maybe think they are our friends and not foes.
TRPA is an agency with the responsibility of preserving the area which we love and to preserve it for the future, maybe once try thinking that this agency is our friend, not enemy. Of course, some do not like to be held responsible for making improvements to their property, and so on.
Maybe try to think that we are fortunate to have major players in our City, look at a bigger picture of what is going to make our community better in the long run. Economic data clearly shows we must change and having a “NO” position will hold back hope for our future. You have to ask yourself are you so bitter and unhappy with your life that you don’t want things to be better for others? Maybe you are not fully understanding the issues at hand? There are many meetings geared towards educating us to have an objective view of matters at hand and to discuss compromise for all.
We are fortunate to have a professional like Austin Sass, willing to serve our community. He is a candidate who is experienced in tourism, lives here with his family, and like some of us would like our area to raise out of high poverty, unemployment, property vacancies, and to be the best we can be.
Congratulations to Joanne Connor and Hal Cole!
How can people vote for Hal Cole after all he has done to destroy this town? SLT deserves all the negativity it will receive over the next 4 yrs. I’ve met the man and he is a BS’er. Good luck, SLT!
Hal Cole will do more to help this community than any of the rest, I will support JoAnn but please don’t blog on this site all the time, time to lead from the council chair.
If Sass were elected and then ran for re-election his opponents would have posted signs saying, NO BACK SASS. OK, I’ll have another cup of coffee and sign off.
the lack of vision displayed by the south shore electorate/flock keeps the oligarchy in control. fortier leave now. council appoint sass.
Just loved Cole’s ad taking credit for Lakeview Commons. As far as I know the only major involvement the council had was the errant selection of the contractor. That ended up costing the city or state (never found out) over $100,000 to have their original pick pack up and go away.Furthermore, the grant money and major reason this project was completed was due to the great work of the Tahoe Conservancy.
Congratulations to Hal Cole and JoAnn Conner!
Yep, it’s amazing he tries to take credit for that! And in our City’s system you can get elected with really not that much support. Just need a core of supporters, which growing up in town Cole has.
National election didn’t go as I’d like. But something about that I’m able to respect the will of the people! That I guess plenty of people in our town want more holes created has me floored!
You ran a great campaign, JoAnn. Congratulations from a supporter.
Congratulations Joann, Show them what you got.
Glad to see JoAnn Conner elected. Very disappointed Hole Cole is back. What were you voters thinking?
Now that the elections are over and the people of this Country have spoken via their votes it’s time for everyone to start working together toward a better future on national, state, and local levels. As adults we learn that no one can get their way on everything and compromise is essential for anything to be accomplished. No matter if the candidates that individuals supported or opposed were elected or not, it’s time to put differences aside and work collectively so everyone has the opportunity to prosper.
Congratulations to JoAnn Conner and Hal Cole, and my hope is that this new City Council will have great success in moving our community toward prosperity.
First off, congratulations to Cole and Conner. The mandate for the Council is clear: help restore our economy by (among other things) expanding recreational opportunities like connecting and repairing bike paths/routes, bringing more ball sport tournaments and special events to town, fully utilizing the ice rink and track and positioning SLT as a center for the study of high altitude athletics. Also much of our infrastructure—from roads to buildings—from the Y to Stateline, needs to be thoroughly upgraded. And for Petes sake–can’t someone get CalTrans to coordinate the pathetically, idiotically, wastefully ill-time traffic signals on Hwy 50??? That would go a long way toward improving traffic flow
Secondly: Less than 53% of SLT voters actually bothered to vote? Sad. So we have a community almost evenly split between voters who can’t decide if we should transform the town or marginally improve the status quo and those who just don’t seem to care enough to even inform themselves and vote. Sad, sad sad.
Thirdly: Thank you ‘let’s be a better city’ for an excellent post. Lack of vision is a serious issue here and is keeping us from collectively designing a better, more secure, sustainable future.
Since Sass won third place in the election, won’t he be appointed to the city council after Claire resigns? And Sass, Cole, and Davis want the loop road even though many business and home owners may have to sacrifice everything for its construction.
Swanson identifies political process with political power and validates the rightness of her own positions by identifying with the Process. You can practically hear her panting for the loop road as the TTD originally designed it.
Grego was the only one who with steady conviction challenged the single mindedness of the TTD’s preferred and only alternative for the road. He was an independent voice and voted his convictions even when sometimes his was the only descenting vote. As it turned out, he and the city attorney were right to oppose the relocation of the City of Angeles.
Even though Grego was not the flashiest of speakers, his positions were carefully articulated and humane. He heard and considered the positions of less powerful citizens.
I thank Councilman Grego for his service and wish him the best. Many of us will miss him on the council.
And to the publisher of this news blog who without giving any examples, stated that Grego was “incredibly out of touch” and therefore should not be re-elected, I now wish for her many opportunities to feel the tender touch of the city council member- her choice, Sass- who may be coming along real soon to touch us all in our little town.
Susan again we read Cole runs a construction company. Where does he construct, what does he construct, how does he construct,what is the name of his construction company. Is Cole a Handy Man type or does he hold a State Contractors License.
You may recall Hal did not understand the concept of a Surety providing a contract bond that guarantees Performance
and Payment.
….oh, btw, David and Chief, where’s my ten dollars!….t/y
Yes please get the traffic signals working properly again. Congrats to JoAnn.
Who cares. Democratic still swinging the bat.
PEPPER RULES,SALT CLOGS THE VEINS OF U.S.A.
Big money can pay their fair share in taxes like the rest of us!
I agree fix the broken stop lights!!!
No studies no million dollar software just fix the broken ones!!!!
I have wasted thousands of gallons of gas stopping and starting for broken lights over the years.
Scott I got $10.00 for you see ya at Ernies on Friday at the fund raiser for Chris
Porked should be the new slogan for are town wait till you see the future
the new Stop lights are not istaled yet
becuase Disney construction is broke and can not pay there bills